The Loudun possessions and exorcism controversy

Record summary

Several Ursuline nuns at Loudun reported demonic affliction and accused the priest Urbain Grandier of witchcraft. Grandier was tried and executed in 1634, while exorcisms and competing explanations attracted political, medical and theological attention. The case matters for comparing possession scripts, institutional authority, gendered testimony, political conflict and retrospective skepticism. Uncertainty involves the nuns’ symptoms and motivations, the reliability of interrogation records, the role of Cardinal Richelieu’s enemies and the extent to which later literature dramatized the episode.